strategy

A (brief) return to coaching

/ antonioyrocinante / 1 Comment

St. Vincent de Paul is a graduate School with only 120 odd resident students, so we do not have a formal athletic program. The guys do sports, but on their own. Except for a once a semester soccer game against the St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami.

Last year, due to Covid we did not play. This year seeing a need, I volunteered to coach the SVdP Shepherds.

I have been coaching (on and off) for 17 years. At this point what I enjoy the most about coaching is building the team, working first on communication and trust, then on skills, technique, and strategies and all the other bits necessary to succeed as a team.

What a pleasure to return to the field, to work with the guys at skills that we do not teach in the classroom.

Unfortunately, we did not have a lot of time to practice, but we did the best we could.

We lost the game 3 – 4, but I am really proud of the men, we played a far superior game, we played as a team! But halfway through the first half while we were winning 2 – 0, we lost steam, we lost our shape, and the Miami guys took advantage of that. In the second half we came back and scored the third goal, but it was too late.

I was blessed to have a student volunteer as an assistant coach! Misho led the warmups, worked with our goalie, and helped to organize practices, helped me with strategy on game day, what a blessing!

All in all, it was a great experience, and I can’t wait to start preparing next year’s game!!

PS: The initiated will notice our colors are red and white stripes. This is our traditional kit, and in NO WAY my decision. I would have been fine just wearing plain all white 😉

Photo Creds: Carmela Grande, Chris Holsom.

Wrapping up another semester, #5

/ antonioyrocinante / 1 Comment

Part of the problem with being an eternal optimist is that one always thinks things are going to be easier than they are. This last semester is a good example. The semester started off uphill, with me losing my washer and dryer (see previous post), getting a speeding ticket, and more importantly having to finesse my doctoral committee and getting my prospectus approved.

The exam was on November 7. You can read my previous post about it, but is was at the same time a grueling yet highly enriching experience. That afternoon I celebrated by playing soccer with my colleagues (more on that later) and then by going to see Benjamin Britten’s opera, Curlew River, inspired by the Japanese Noh theater (more on that also later). And of course, after all that by having a drink (or two) at my favorite bar, Zog’s.

After passing my exam I slumped into a bit of a post prospectus depression. My next goal is defending my dissertation, but that is not planned until the Spring of 2016. So all of a sudden I was without an immediate goal. This required some getting used to. I could finally, after three years, watch movies (more on that later), or enjoy dead time. That first Saturday I celebrated with a glorious breakfast at my favorite breakfast place Ye Olde Waffle Shop, and waltzing around Chapel Hill as if I owned it. Stopping at this store and that, hanging out at the old bookstore, and the museum.

As always teaching is my passion and this semester did not disappoint. I taught two sections of Intermediate Spanish 203, one of them in the Philosophy building. This allowed me to enjoy their philosophical bathroom graffiti.

Nature abhors a vacuum, so I soon changed my rhythm and got busy. I talked strategy with my professors to attack the dissertation, Prof. González Espitia named me to be a grad student editor of the department´s literary journal Hispanófila, and I started to prepare my dissertation by re-visiting the first four works of my beloved Padre Isla.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.